


VAGABOUNCY

by JayP



Category: Homestuck, Replay Value AU - Fandom
Genre: GodsGiftToGrinds - Freeform, If you're playing sburb, Replay Value AU, SBURB Guide, Sburb Glitch FAQ - Freeform, read this if you want to learn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 11:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12506732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JayP/pseuds/JayP
Summary: An explanation of how to practice the mysterious art of Vagabouncy in order to change the classpect you were dealt.





	VAGABOUNCY

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sburb Glitch FAQ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/340777) by [GodsGiftToGrinds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodsGiftToGrinds/pseuds/GodsGiftToGrinds). 



> So, I started this a long time ago while talking to GGTG about maybe doing some guest chapters, but I lost a ton of progress when my computer restarted. A year later and I finally finished it in one night to prep for a fic I'm going to be writing soon. I had a lot more notes but they got deleted because it didn't import properly, apparently I have shit luck in that department. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy.
> 
> PS. I might do more of these, I know I was working on one for Time and some other sections in the FAQ listed as offline.

VAGABOUNCY

Welcome to this guide. I don't know all that sweet formatting stuff that GGTG uses in his FAQ, but since he's been mysteriously absent (sidenote: anybody know where the fuck he's at? He hasn't been confirmed dead, he apparently just dropped off the map completely. Hope his session is going alright) anyways yeah since he's been decidedly not around, I figured I'd pick up where he left off with the teaching the newbies how to not die and everything.

  
Now that all that is out of the way, in the spirit of helping people to not die, let's go ahead and address one of the most dangerous metagaming techniques there is. Vagabouncy is definitely hella dangerous my man, no doubt about that. Only issue is that it's also really freakin' useful, especially since Sburb tries so very hard to screw us over.

  
Vagabouncy is basically a way to reroll your classpect, and as you might guess from the name it actually does involve a type of bouncing. See, most people know that Sburb messes with 'fate' in weird as fuck ways to make it so that your typing color is your eye color and that you technically were never born etc. etc. Most people also know that Sburb has everything decided for you from the very beginning, everything in this festering garbage heap of a game is against you from square one.

  
It kills your parent/guardian, then gives you another one in the form of the sprite just to kill them again.

Crippling social anxiety? Guess who's getting a classpect that'll force you to communicate constantly.

Afraid of spiders? Your consorts will probably be arachnids just because fuck you why not.

  
The key here is that your classpect is fated from the very beginning, before you even get into the game. If only there were some way to bribe the temptress of fate and change her mind...Oh wait there is.  
Time players instinctively understand timelines and 'fate' better than most, but the rest of us have to figure it out all on our lonesome, or with the help of a totally kickass guide.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
@@@@@@ Method 1 @@@@@@  
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Shit okay I've rambled enough. You know how the kernel sprite is technically the moment you register as a player? Well until then, your classpect is fated, but that fate is tied to you as a person, not the game or any type of game abstraction. From here there are multiple paths to success, with varying degrees of likeliness to kill you. The first method involves trapping the kernel sprite within the tube that it emerges from, making it bounce back and forth. This was the first method originally found and where the term vagabouncy comes from.

  
So what you want to do is, pop off the top of your cruxtruder like the cork on wine bottle. What that means is bop it as lightly as possible, I recommend starting with light taps and working your way up to huge smashes, since each top takes a different amount of force to pop. Your goal is to release the catch but not actually force the lid off.  
To ensure this, you can secure the top to the cruxtruder through means of duct tape or whatever else, though everyone knows that's for total wusses. The kernel will then try to rise up, but it'll hit the bottom of the lid instead. Now I know what you're thinking, "Won't that prototype the lid? What the fuck kind of sprite would come from a lid?" Don't lie, we both know you were.

The thing is, the cruxtruder, along with the alchimiter and all the other machines you get in the early game, are completely unprototypeable. I don't know if they're made of some special metal, or if they're just tagged as [Nototype] or something in the source code, but in the end it doesn't matter. The kernel will hit that baby and then bounce right on back down the tube, going very slowly at first. This slow speed is actually very beneficial, because you want to attempt to extrude two(2) cruxite dowels. This fills the tube up before the kernel can reach the bottom and helps the process to go faster.

  
The cruxite is also unable to be prototyped, and so it'll get that kernel bouncing real quick. You want to let it bounce for exactly 15 seconds. I recommend you watch the clock on the cruxtruder. Have your server player waiting with whatever you actually want to prototype hovering above the tube, because the kernel is going to shoot out of there at mach fucking eleven. That wasn't a humorous exaggeration, it will literally break the sound barrier as it ejects. I recommend earplugs. This is an actual reason to avoid taping down the lid if possible, you need to be exact with keeping it on. Don't worry about the kernel knocking the lid off, it somehow doesn't have any mass when interacting with game objects? I don't even know man.

  
Anyways, what this does is slightly damages the kernels ability to recognize certain things about you. We still don't exactly know why, but it will prevent the kernel from registering your classpect, voice (yes they register what your voice sounds like, I'm assuming for the Negastrife), gender, and finally your age, which is also odd since from what I can tell absolutely nothing in the game interacts with this.

  
The game surprisingly has a backup plan for when registration partially or wholly fails, the first consort you meet will do a questionnaire type shindig where they act all confused, saying that they recognize you but can't quite figure out from where, so you'll need to jog their memory. Now the game expects you to say the usual stuff, "My name is blah? You still don't recognize me? Well I'm 4 years old and from Cincinnati, etc." Eventually the consort asks for whatever information the registration is missing and also does what I'm nearly positive is an intentional pokemon reference and asks if you're a boy or a girl, although you can say literally anything and it will be accepted. Once it has all that it's apparently enough for the game to 'connect' with your personal history and fate, and it will assign your classpect.

  
But, if the first thing you say to the consort is "I'm the [blank] of [blank] it will be accepted and locked in, so even once you're recognized it will still count you as that classpect.

  
**[Glitches, Risks, Advantages]**

 

[Risk: Easy to Mess Up]

  
Obviously the biggest risk with the original vagabouncy method is that you'll be an idiot sboob and fuck up the process. This is the most mechanically challenging of the methods, and there are several points at which you can mess up. If you release too quickly you may not get the proper wear and tear on the kernel, but if you release too late then you can fuck up your session in the worst kind of way. This can go several ways, but the most common that I've seen is that any and all of your efforts are completely futile. The planet is unable to ever recognize you as a player, and it never even wakes up in the first place. You'll still be there, you just can't do anything at all. Your session is doomed from the start and you just have to sit and watch it crumble around you.

 

  
[Glitch:What Do You Expect?]

  
Registering as a player through this method will mess up dungeon identification on some dungeons. Some areas spawn on your land from the beginning, while others come up after you reach certain checkpoints, mainly completing terraforming. For those dungeons that existed from the beginning, they will have been created before you had your aspect, thus they won't have the symbol above the door denoting who the dungeon belongs to. This works similarly to void players where anyone can complete the dungeon for you. It's not really a huge deal, just make sure you communicate with your pals properly.

 

[Advantage: Control]

  
The advantage of this method should be clear, if you do things properly you get to pick your classpect, 100% no ifs ands or buts, you just pick whatever you want and ta-da there it is all pretty and neat. This is superior to other methods where you have to either keep scrolling though classpects until you get one you like, or where you only get one reroll and that's it.

 

  
[Risk: Permanent Damage]

  
All that jostling around can't be good for the kernel, no matter what the gamebreaking community will tell you, and personally seeing as the kernel is partially responsible for the propagation of the new universe, I'm nervous about messing it up.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
@@@@@@ Method 2 @@@@@@  
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Okay so that other method was hella neat and I guess it gets some cred for being the original vagabouncy, but I prefer this one for pure safety reasons. This method doesn’t allow you to pick and choose your classpect, but you can keep getting a new one assigned to you until you’re given one you like.

  
For this method, you’ll need to mess with your registration once again. However, this time instead of messing with the kernel, you’re messing with yourself. This has it’s own risks, which will be discussed later on.

  
You know those games with character creation options where you can hit “random face” and if you hit it over and over again your character becomes increasingly monstrous? That’s basically what you’re doing, except without the monstrous part. Hopefully. With sburb you never really know.

  
Okay so you’re probably going to be fine. This is my method of choice and I’ve never heard of anyone having serious issues with it. What you do is make the game unable to recognize you as...you. You’re going to scratch out the name on your digital driver's license and then the game will just keep guessing what your name is until it gets it right.  
To do this, you need to get stupid. Specifically, you need to be wearing a tinfoil helmet when you prototype your kernel.

  
Yes, you read that right. This method is actually so stupid and it amazes me every time that it works, but it does. Just pop that bad boy on your dome and the game won’t recognize who you are. It’s due to a glitch where code that was supposed to make certain npc’s unable to read your mind when they normally can, mainly the carapace detective that ask you to help solve cases. The one in a bad Sherlock Holmes get up, with a pipe and one of those hats.

  
He can read your mind, or in game terms, access the data the game has on you, in order to impress you with his skills of deduction. It ties into this subplot where various carapaces on both moons are actually robots sent over by the mad engineers guild on the other moon and that’s supposed to be your big hint where you use your skills of deduction that you’ve picked up along the questline to figure out what is going on. To be honest it’s not really important.

  
That script leaks everywhere and suddenly the game can’t access it’s data on you at all when you’re wearing tinfoil. Note that this does not work on the Denizen and anything else tagged with omniscience. They don’t need the game data, they just know.

  
When the game realizes it doesn’t recognize who you are, it starts making wild guesses. Just keep asking your sprite what they know about you. Since the game can’t fill in the sprite with all the knowledge they usually have about your life, the sprite is eager to tell you anything at all. Which happens to be whatever the game filled in for your name, age, classpect, etc.

  
Normally sprites won’t tell you your classpect, but in this case they know so little that they give up whatever they can. If you don’t like what it tells you, just say that it made a mistake. The game is so desperate to fix things at this point that the sprite will just roll up an entirely new character sheet for you. It’s pretty funny for the sprite to tell you that you’re a fourteen year old named Tiffany one minute, and immediately after claim that you’re fifty nine and named Vernon or something.

**[Glitches, Risks, Advantages]**

 

[Glitch: Identity Crisis]

  
Once you take off the helmet, the game can read your data again. This can create some errors, since the game has your data filled in with your name and age as one thing, but your memories show something different.

  
By the way yes, this does confirm that the game reads your memories. Like, we always knew that the game knows if you’re a coward or a know it all or whatever, but it’s kind of freaky that it knows how and why you are the way you are.

  
Most of the issues can be corrected by speaking to the librarian on your dream moon. They’re in charge of keeping records and will change most information about you if you ask. The game is surprisingly cool with any sort of gender or pronoun changes you may ask for. You just have to grind through some quests first, mainly tracking down people who didn’t return library books.

 

[Advantage: Safe]

  
When the previous method goes wrong, it ruins your entire session. When this method goes wrong, you can’t get into your dungeons and have a host of other identity related issues. I know which I prefer, especially since the dungeons can be glitched in to. The disadvantage to this method is that it’s time consuming, and during a time when you don’t necessarily want to chat with your sprite all day. Entry tends to get pretty rushed.

  
You can theoretically go through classpects until you get exactly the one you want, offering just as much control as Method One, but it’s just not feasible. You’re better off settling for something you can stomach and moving on.

 

[Glitch? Feature?]

  
Even though you can correct your name and everything in the games record books, and the game can read your memories once you take off the helmet, it still has some things set in stone. This means that you’ll have to do some maturity quests for someone who isn’t you.

  
Sure, sometimes the game will check your current mental state and see what kind of quest you need, but it will trend towards certain types of quests based on who it thought you were at entry. This can be both a blessing and a curse. You might end up with maturity quests that are actually very easy for you to handle, or you might end up doing quests that are exactly the kind you hate.

  
At least when you don’t vagabounce, you know what’s coming. I don’t like the randomness.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@  
@@@@@@ Method 3 @@@@@@  
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And now for the simplest, safest, most surefire way to vagabounce. Get the kernel out in the open, then throw yourself in it.

  
Come on, don’t be scared. Just jump in, the water’s fine.

  
This method scares a lot of people when you mention it, but it’s actually really safe. Whoever coded Sburb anticipated that this might happen, either by accident or on purpose. When you jump into the glowing orb, you’ll bounce off. In that moment between touching it and prototyping, the game will quickly assign you whatever variable is on the alchemiter and stuff that makes them unable to be prototyped.

  
Why it isn’t assigned from the very start is beyond me, but according to my more savvy friends, it get assigned the instant you touch a kernel, not before. This has the added benefit of rerolling your classpect, and for once it’s actually intentional. There’s no confusing the game or corrupting data here, it’s actually supposed to happen. I think it was added in so that replayers could reroll into a classpect more suited for them after they show up in someone else’s house.

  
You only get to do it once per session, and it’s permanent. However it also makes the game...easier? Normally you get assigned a classpect that is a challenge, the exact opposite of your natural tendencies. And if you’re vagabouncing using methods One or Two, you might pick a classpect that’s exactly in line with your tendencies. So if the game would usually give you the aspect Mind because you’re very impulsive, and you might give yourself the aspect Fate for the same reason, Method Three just gives you something neutral.

  
It will give you a classpect that is more or less unrelated to your personal development, and is neither a challenge nor something you’re naturally suited for. I think it might be one of the few kindnesses put into this horror show of a game.

  
You still have to do maturity quests that challenge you, but you’re guaranteed to have an easier time roleplaying than usual. Some people actually don’t like this, they say that without the challenge of being forced to roleplay, the game gets dull. I say they’re suckers.

 

**[Glitches, Risks, Advantages]**

  
There actually aren’t any glitches or risks for this one. It works, simple as that. It’s safe, other than you potentially bumping your head when you bounce off the kernel.

Ahahaha can you imagine? Something actually being properly coded? Sorry, I had to do it. The main glitch here is that it won't assign you the correct classpect if you have some growing to do. It runs a check on your maturity and personal growth, and if it isn't adequate it will give you a classpect that challenges you, as per usual. 

What is  _supposed_ to happen is you replay the game and you keep all your maturity and the lessons you've learned. You've already grown up as a person, so the game doesn't need to make you do it again. However, upon hitting the replay button you lose all that progress and go back to how you were before you started playing, so very rarely does it read you as mature enough to get the easy option.  

Another issue is if a space or time player attempts this. One of two things will happen, either they get space or time again, only with a different title, or the game compels another player via fate shenanigans to also throw themselves into the kernel.

The former will happen if you're the last player to enter, or if the only other player who has yet to prototype is also a space/time player. It can also happen if for some reason there's something preventing another player from taking your place. 

The latter is my favorite way the game tries to ensure the session is healthy, because it will go to absurd lengths to get someone else to prototype themselves. They become a massive klutz and trip into the kernel, or they have a muscle spasm and their body twitches and touches it. I've even heard of someone who hallucinated someone trying to give him a high five, so of course being a bro he couldn't leave the dude hanging. And his hand smacked right into the kernel. It can get pretty hilarious.

Another issue, though it won't affect you, is that this does work for people in their first session. It's not actually an  _issue_ except that it changes what their native classpect is, and assuming they survive and join the replaying community, a lot of people self identify with their native stuff.

 

**[Warning. Seriously. Fucking read this.]**

  
Do not, I repeat, do not have more or fewer than one time and space player in your session. There are only one of each for a reason, and having more will confuse the game in the absolute worst way, screwing over the entire point of it. And if you spec out of space or time without finding someone to replace your spot, it's somehow even worse. I also recommend you avoid the cataclysm classes, I know they might sound like fun to the newbie who hasn't dealt with them, "Oooohhh I get to be the magicalest and most prettiest magical girl, yippee!!! I'm special!1!" but trust me, you do not want them in your session, and you definitely do not want to be one.


End file.
